Social media apps likely to get 36 hours to remove unlawful content

The government is planning to extend the time to remove unlawful content or disable access on social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. Under the intermediary guidelines, the govt may give internet and social media firms up to 36 hours to remove unlawful content.

The move is taken to bring it at par with the current provisions under the IT Act, added an ET report quoting govt official.

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) mulling to relax content monitoring clause, which was also part of govt draft guidelines released last December. The ministry is instead planning to develop AI mechanism to find out originators of antisocial or inflammatory content.

The govt wants social media firms to develop automated tools to identify unlawful content within 72 hours and take action to remove it as soon as possible. Besides a series of marked illegal content, the govt is also mulling to add terrorism-related content.

The clause reportedly will not apply to all intermediaries such as internet service providers and cloud service providers.

In 2018, the Supreme Court had asked the government to take a step to stop the spread of irresponsible and explosive messages, videos and other material on various social media platforms.

Initially, the govt's move faced opposition from tech firms.

Under the IT rules notified in 2011, companies had to act within 36 hours of receiving a written complaint from a person. The law was amended after the apex court struck it down, that service providers will act within 36 hours after receiving Court order or govt agency.

Meanwhile, the govt ensure that it will fix accountability accordingly. The finalisation of the guidelines is still underway.